


Aftermath

by marececilys



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Jiper, Mental Illness, Multi, PTSD, caleo - Freeform, frazel - Freeform, percabeth, solangelo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 13:43:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4062136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marececilys/pseuds/marececilys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The unwritten reunions and after-effects of the events from Blood of Olympus (contains spoilers)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING: Will contain depictions of mental illness such as PTSD, depression, and anxiety. If any of these are triggers for you, please read cautiously and at your own risk.

     Percy and Annabeth stood outside Percy’s parents’ apartment door, both of them nervous and slightly afraid to knock. It had been so long since Percy had last seen his parents, and _so much ___had happened. It felt like an entire lifetime was separating Percy and Annabeth from the other side of that door.  
     Annabeth looked at Percy, asking him a silent question with her eyes.  
      _Ready? ___  
_Not at all ___, Percy thought, but he rang the doorbell.  
     Paul answered the door almost immediately. The look on his face when he saw the two of them standing there was something Percy would never forget. He stared at them for a second, speechless, and then suddenly Sally was there with the same look on her face and before he knew it he was engulfed in a tangle of arms with the life being squeezed out of him, but he didn’t care. He hugged her back with the same ferocity, tears streaming down both of their faces while his mom whispered his name over and over like she still couldn’t believe he was there. He wanted to stay like that forever, home in his mother’s arms without the weight of the world lying on his shoulders. For the first time in a long time, he almost felt safe. Then all too soon, she broke away and it was Paul’s turn to hug Percy while his mom attacked Annabeth with almost the same intensity she had with him. He could see Annabeth was crying now too, and Paul looked like he was right on the verge. Percy thought that they should probably stop now before their entire apartment became flooded with tears.  
     “Um, I’m kind of thirsty,” he announced, “Maybe we should-“  
     “Right, right, of course, of course”, His mother had slightly calmed down from her hysterics now and her hospitality instincts kicked back in. “Come in, Come in, why don’t I make you both some tea? And cookies. Paul, get out the cookie mix, will you? And don’t forget the blue food coloring.” She winked at Percy when she said this. “Why don’t you both make yourselves at home on the couch over there, okay? We’ll join you in a minute. God, I can’t believe you’re both here.” She looked like she might start crying again but fought to hold herself together. When the tea and cookies were done, she and Paul brought them over and sat in the chairs opposite the couch where Percy and Annabeth were sitting.  
They all sat in silence for a long time, eating the cookies. Percy knew that his parents wanted to hear the story, but he didn’t even know where to begin. He looked at Annabeth and saw the same struggle on her face. Finally, his mom broke the silence.  
     “You don’t have to tell us. Not right away, at least. I know it must be extremely difficult for you. And I do want to know what happened eventually. But you don’t have to tell us right now, not if you don’t want to.” Her voice was soft, like she was scared of saying too much.  
     “Thank you, Sally,” Annabeth said, “I think we just need a little time to…take this all in, I guess. It’s been a long couple of months.” She tried a laugh, but there was sadness to it.  
     Percy’s mom nodded. “That’s fine. Whenever you’re ready. I’m just glad you two are alright. You have no idea how worried we’ve been.” Her voice cracked. “After you left me that voicemail Percy, I thought I would die from relief. We thought you were… Well, we didn’t even know if you were alive. And then you left that message… One little message, Percy! And you hardly said anything at all! What were you thinking?”  
     “I know, mom. I’m so sorry. It was just so… complicated. My memory was just coming back to me. I had just barely remembered your number. I didn’t know what to say.” Percy almost regretted saying the memory part, he wasn’t sure if Annabeth had told him about that after she’d figured out that’s what probably had happened to him when Jason Grace showed up all amnesiac at Camp Half-Blood. But if this was news to his mom, she didn’t question it.  
     “Okay, okay. I’ll yell at you later. Right now let’s just enjoy the fact that you’re here. That you’re finally safe.”  
     Percy didn’t tell his mom what he was thinking, that ever since Tartarus, he never really felt safe. Not like he used to. He didn’t tell her that the things he’d seen still haunted his dreams every night, that they had changed him, that they lived inside him. He hadn’t told anyone that, not even Annabeth really, not the depth of it. He knew she would be the only one who would really understand, but for some reason that made it even harder. So he’d acted like everything was fine. Played the part. He’d cracked jokes, trying to make it seem like he was still his old self, the Percy he used to be before his memories haunted him. But now, sitting here in his parents’ apartment, surrounded by the people he loved most in the world, he felt the façade slowly start to slip away. He desperately wished he could build it back up, that he could continue to hide his hurt from the world. But he knew it would not last long, and that sooner or later, he would have to tell them. And that was what terrified him most of all.


	2. Back from the Dead

     “You suck at this.”  
     Leo, who was hopelessly swinging the paddle around in the wrong direction, sending the canoe in endless backward circles, did, in fact, suck at this. But he wasn’t going to let anyone tell him that.  
     “Who, me? I am the supreme lord of canoeing. You just think I suck because you’re not used to my original technique.”  
     Calypso snorted. “You’re so full of shit, Leo.”  
     Leo splashed her.  
     She splashed him back. “Do you WANT me to tip this canoe over? Because I will do it, Leo Valdez, and no amount of your _original technique ___will be able to stop me.”  
     “Go right ahead. Then we’ll both look like a couple of sopping-wet idiots at dinner.”  
     “No, _you’ll ___look like the sopping-wet idiot. I’ll just be the poor victim of your terrible canoeing skills.”  
     “Aw, don’t be like that. This is fun. Look, I think we just made a figure-eight.”  
     “No, we didn’t. We just changed directions. We’re still making circles, like we’ve been making circles for the past twenty minutes. Give me that.” She reached for the paddle, but Leo wouldn’t let go.  
     “Wait, not so fast! I haven’t done my final trick!”  
     Calypso rolled her eyes. “What was a trick was you telling me this would be fun. You know, for a mechanic, you’d think you’d be able to steer a canoe.”  
     “I am a master of machines, not manual labor.”  
     “I thought you were the supreme lord of canoeing.”  
     “Did I say canoeing? I meant canon-balling. Watch”, he said, and then he stood up and canon-balled out of the canoe, sufficiently soaking Calypso.  
     “What the hell? Idiot.” She said to herself, shaking her head as he was still underwater. Then suddenly, the canoe tipped, and before Calypso had a chance to respond she was in the water with the canoe upside-down over her head.  
     “Screw you, Leo!” She yelled as she came up for air, sputtering.  
     Leo grinned and shook out his hair. “That”, he said, “was my final trick.”  
     “You are so lame.”  
     “You love me.”  
     “Can’t imagine why”, she said, and she kissed him.  
     Leo leaned into the kiss, inhaling the scent of her. She always smelled like flowers and nature. He loved that smell. When he thought about all that had happened to get them here, it was the scent of her that always made it worth it. Which might sound weird, but whatever.  
     He thought about the day they first arrived back at Camp Half-Blood. He wasn’t even sure they would let Calypso in. It had been Nico who had first seen him on the top of the hill, where he’d stood staring, open-mouthed.  
     “Dude”, he’d said, “You’re supposed to be dead. I felt you die.”  
     “I was dead”, Leo’d replied, “But now I’m good as new. Got the physician’s cure to thank for that.” He’d tried to sound cheerful, but there was sadness in his voice as he thought about all the pain his friends had gone through when they thought he’d died.  
     “You took the cure. You’re alive.” Leo wasn’t sure why Nico kept restating the facts. Then Nico grinned. “Welcome home.”

     Leo, Calypso, and Festus were able to pass the border without a problem. Which was good, because Leo hadn’t been sure how that would work out. Festus had then proceeded to fly off into the forest.  
     “See you later, I guess.” Leo mumbled as Festus flew away. It was the middle of the day, and the presence of an enormous flying dragon had only disturbed a few campers.  
     “Where is everybody?” Leo barely had time to get the question out before he heard a scream and was suddenly being attacked by a blur of tan skin and long, dark-brown hair.  
     “Can’t-breathe-“ He stuttered as Piper hugged the absolute shit out of him. But he hugged her back, glad that he was finally home.  
     When Piper finally pulled away, she slapped him. Hard.  
     “Don’t you EVER die on me again, or I swear to all the gods I will kill you, Leo Valdez!”  
     “Ow”, Leo said.  
     Then he noticed Jason was there for the first time, but before he could even fully process that information, he was having the living shit hugged out of him again.  
     “Bro”, Jason said when he broke away, “We thought you were dead.”  
     “I know. I’m sorry. Are you gonna slap me, too?”  
     “Nah, man, I wouldn’t be able to slap harder than Piper anyways.”  
     Piper glared at him. “I won’t apologize.”  
     Leo grinned. “It’s alright, Pipes. I deserved it. I missed you guys too.” He could actually feel tears coming to his eyes as he said this. Great, just when he was starting to be cool with his bad-ass return from the dead, he had to ruin it with crying. Then he looked up and remembered Calypso was there. Guiltily, he turned back to his friends.  
     “By the way, this is Calypso”, he said, making an introductory motion with his hands, “My-“  
     “I’m not going to let you finish that, because it’s going to be something stupid. I’m his girlfriend”, Calypso said.  
     Leo was taken aback. “That’s what I was going to say!”  
     “No, you were going to say something really cheesy like, ‘The Goddess of Your Dreams’”  
     “I was so _not ___going to say that.”  
     “Yeah, whatever, Mr. _I’m cool ‘cause I’m back from the dead ___.”  
     Piper laughed. “I like you”, she said to Calypso.  
     “So”, Leo said, changing the subject, “Where is everybody else? I mean, no offense, but I kind of expected a bigger ‘Welcome Back’ party. “  
     “They’re over by the amphitheater. Come on”, she said, gesturing for them to follow. “We’ll take you to them. They’re in for a surprise.” 


	3. Son of the Death God

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING: Will contain depictions of mental illness such as PTSD, depression, and anxiety. If any of these are triggers for you, please read cautiously and at your own risk.

     "So this kid shows up at the infirmary today, and he had , like, broken his arm in three different places", Will began, just after finishing his last story about some camper allegedly getting in a fist-fight with a wood nymph. "He said he fell off a pegasus. How do you even fall off a pegasus? The ones we have at camp are, like, super gentle."  
     "I don't know if I'd say that", Nico interjected, tossing the last strawberry in his mouth. "Pegasi don't like me that much. Son of the death god and all."  
     They were sitting in their favorite spot, behind a large boulder at the edge of the canoe lake. He could see Leo and Calypso fooling around like idiots at the other side of the lake, and for some reason watching them made him feel a tang of jealousy in his chest.  
     Will shook his head. "You have _got ___to stop playing that 'son of the death god' card, Nico. Honestly, it's not going to get you anywhere progressive in life."  
     "Yeah, well, it's kind of all I've got going for me right now. Talking to ghosts and raising armies of the undead to reek vengeance upon my enemies is all I know."  
     Nico thought Will would laugh at that, but he didn't. "I'm being serious, Nico. You've got to start giving yourself more credit. Believe me, raising armies of the undead is not all you're good for. You've got a lot more going for you than that."  
     Nico felt his face flush a little when he said that. "Yeah, well", he said, looking down. "Sometimes it doesn't feel that way." He took a deep breath. "Being the son of the death god doesn't come in handy all that much when it comes to people actually dying."  
     Will looked at him. "It's not your fault, Nico. None of the people who died in the war. You couldn't have stopped them. No one blames you for that."  
     Nico thought about Octavian's strange death that was practically a suicide, and how he had let the bastard kill himself right in front of him. He didn't know why he felt so guilty over the death of someone who had probably deserved to die. But he did.   
     "Are you still having the nightmares?" Will asked.   
     "Everyone has nightmares, sometimes, Will. We're demigods. All kinds of things like to fuck with us in our dreams."  
     "You know what I mean."  
     Nico did know what he meant, because he was the one who had told Will about the nightmares in the first place. He mentally regretted it now.   
     He had first had _the ___nightmare, the one he'd told Will about and the one he'd been having almost every night for several weeks now, when he was on the Argo II after being rescued from Tartarus. It always started off the same: Nico was trapped in a jar, paralyzed, while monsters of all shapes and sizes knocked and kicked on the glass, pushing their horrible faces against it looked hungrily at Nico. The faces were the most terrifying part. The part that had disturbed him so much, he hadn't even told Will about it. Because instead of the faces of monsters, what was pressed up against him were the faces of all the dead people he knew. All the friends he had lost and the enemies he'd killed. His mother. Bianca. For a short time, Leo. And, most recently, Octavian.  
     "Nightmares, survivor's guilt... All of that is symptoms for PTSD, you know. A lot of the campers have it. After all that happened, and the things you experienced in Tartar-" he trailed off when he came to the word _Tartarus ___. "I mean, it makes sense that you'd be dealing with all this kind of stuff."  
      _Survivor's guilt ___, Nico thought. _Yeah, I guess you could say I have that ___. But he didn't like the Will talked to him like that, like he was some sick puppy who needed help. And, honestly, the nightmares hadn't been so bad lately. It had been almost two days since the last one, and they were getting to be less terrifying the more he had them. Or maybe he was just getting used to them, but what was the difference?  
     "The nightmares... They don't happen so much anymore", he said. "I don't know. Maybe being the son of the death god makes all that dark stuff easier to deal with."  
     Will looked at him. "Nothing makes it easier to deal with, Nico."  
     "Yeah, I guess it doesn't." He agreed, "But you do."  
     He wasn't sure why he said it. It just kind of slipped out. But it was true. Being with Will helped. When he was with him, joking around or just talking, he felt.... Different. Happy, almost. Free. Nico wasn't used to that kind of freedom.   
     He was busy wondering what Will's response would be when Will cupped his hand under Nico's chin and kissed him.   
     To say the kiss took Nico by surprise would be an understatement. He'd immediately tensed, not quite sure what was happening. His face held the heat of a thousand suns. He was suddenly all too aware aware of every surface of his body, his skin tingling where Will touched him. Slowly, he melted into the kiss.  
     It was a gentle kiss, one that held a thousand words and questions at once. Nico's heart was still beating rapidly when Will pulled away, and his breath caught. He looked up and studied Will's face, his blue eyes that were clearer than the water around them and the collection of freckles around his nose from spending so much time in the sun. He could tell Will was looking at him the same way, and he didn't want either of them to stop and ruin the moment. He was just thinking about kissing him again when the conch sounded for dinner.   
     Will finally looked away. "I guess we better go..." He trailed off. He was silent for a minute, unsure of Nico's reaction to the kiss. Nico could see the same nervousness on his face that knew was on his own. It was so weird, he thought, to see Will Solace at a loss for words.   
     Nico stood up and put his hand in Will's. "Yeah", he said, a smile forming as he watched Will's eyes light up at the gesture. "Let's go."


End file.
